Daniel Alarcón will be reading some of his novel-in-progress Wednesday, Nov. 2 in Biella Room of University Library.

Young author is first presenter in Distinguished Writers series

September 29, 2011

MEDIA CONTACT: Diane Daniel, CLASS Publicist, (510) 885-3183

Acclaimed author Daniel Alarcón will be the first Cal State East Bay Distinguished Writer of the academic year. He will read from “At Night We Walk in Circles,” a novel-in- progress, at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 2, in the Biella Room of the University Library, 25800 Carlos Bee Blvd., Hayward.

The English Department presents three or four writers annually, and encourages both campus and community attendance.

“Daniel Alarcón is a dazzling young writer who is more than an up-and-comer – he has arrived," said Steve Gutierrez, professor of English, director of the CSUEB creative writing program, and event organizer. "Adept in both the short story and novel, he is a writer's writer, a craftsman of the highest order, but with a heart.”

Alarcón was born in Lima, Peru in 1977 and raised from the age of 3 in Birmingham, Alabama. He is associate editor of “Etiqueta Negra,” a monthly magazine based in Lima. His short-story collection, “War by Candlelight,” was a finalist for the 2006 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. His first novel, “Lost City Radio,” was named a best novel of the year by the “San Francisco Chronicle,” the “Washington Post,” and others. The “New Yorker” named him one of 20 promising writers under 40.

“Lost City,” published in 2007, has been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Dutch, Greek, and is forthcoming in Italian, Serbian, Turkish, and Japanese.

Alarcón currently lives in Oakland and is a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley Center of Latin American Studies. Earlier, he was a Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College, and a Visiting Writer at California College of the Arts.

He earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Columbia University and a master's from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has studied in Ghana and taught in New York City. His fiction, journalism and translations have appeared in “A Public Space,” “El País,” “McSweeney’s,” “n+1,” and “Harper’s.”

CSUEB welcomes persons with disabilities and will provide reasonable accommodation upon request. Those needing the accommodations should notify the event sponsor in advance at (510) 885-3151.

Campus parking is $2 per hour at meters, or $10 per day, per vehicle – payable at kiosk machines that accept dollars and quarters.

California State University, East Bay is the San Francisco East Bay Area's high-access public university of choice. CSUEB serves the region with campuses in Hayward and Concord, a professional development center in Oakland, and an innovative online campus. With an enrollment of more than 14,000, the University offers a nationally recognized freshman year experience, award-winning curriculum, personalized instruction, and expert faculty. Students choose from among more than 100 professionally focused fields of study for which the University confers bachelor's and master's degrees, as well as an Ed.D. in education. Named a "Best in the West" college, as well as a Best Business School, by the influential Princeton Review, Cal State East Bay is among the region's foremost producers of teachers, business professionals and entrepreneurs, public administrators, health professionals, literary and performing artists, and science and math graduates.